Ellis 

The  Opening,  the  use,  and 
the  future  of  our  domain 


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THE   OPENING,  THE  USE,  AND  THE   FUTURE  OF  OUR 
DOMAIN  ON  THIS  CONTINENT. 


DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE 


NEW   YORK    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY 

ON    ITS 

EIGHTY-SECOND   ANNIVERSARY, 

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER  16,   1886, 
BY 

GEORGE    E.    ELLIS,    D.D.,    LL.D., 

1'KKMHENT   OF   THH    MASSACHUSETTS    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY. 


NEW  YORK: 
PRINTED  FOR  THE  SOCIETY 

1887. 


THE   OPENING,  THE  USE,  AND  THE   FUTURE  OF  OUR 
DOMAIN  ON  THIS  CONTINENT. 


2ln 


DELIVERED   BEFORE  THB 


NEW   YORK    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY 

ON    ITS 

EIGHTY-SECOND   ANNIVERSARY, 

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER  16,   1886, 
BY 

GEORGE    E.    ELLIS,    D.D.,    LL.D., 

PRESIDENT    OF   THE    MASSACHUSETTS   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY. 


NEW  YORK: 
PRINTED  FOR  THE  SOCIETY. 

1887. 


OFFICERS   OF   THE   SOCIETY,    1886, 


PRESIDENT, 

BENJAMIN    H.     FIELD. 

FIRST   VICE-PRESIDENT, 

HAMILTON    FISH,    LL.D. 

SECOND    VICE-PRESIDENT, 

JOHN    A.    WE  EKES. 

FOREIGN    CORRESPONDING   SECRETARY, 

WILLIAM    M.     EVARTS,    LL.D 

DOMESTIC   CORRESPONDING   SECRETARY, 

EDWARD    F.    DE    LANCEY. 

RECORDING   SECRETARY, 

ANDREW    WARNER. 


.  TREASURER, 

ROBERT    SCHELL 

LIBRARIAN, 

JACOB    B.    MOORE. 


EXECUTIVE    COMMITTEE. 


FIRST    CLASS FOR    ONE    YEAR,    ENDING     1887. 

JOHN  TAYLOR  JOHNSTON,  JOHN  C.  BARRON,  M.D., 

ROBERT   LENOX    KENNEDY. 

SECOND    CLASS FOR  TWO   YEARS,   ENDING    1 888. 

JOHN    S.    KENNEDY,  WILLIAM    DOWD, 

GEORGE    H.    MOORE,  LL.D. 

THIRD    CLASS FOR    THRKE    YEARS,  ENDING    1889. 

JOHN    A.    WEEKES,  WILLIAM    LIBBEY, 

JOHN   W.    C.    LEVERIDGE. 

FOURTH    CLASS — FOR    FOUR   YEARS,    ENDING    1890. 

EDWARD   F.    DE  LANCEY,  DANIEL   PARISH,   JR., 

WILLARD   PARKER,   M.D. 

JOHN   A.    WEEKES,    Chairman. 
JACOB   B.    MOORE,    Secretary. 

[The  President,  Recording  Secretary,  Treasurer,  and   Librarian 
are  members,  ex  officio,  of  the  Executive  Committee.] 


COMMITTEE   ON   THE    FINE   ARTS. 

ASHER  B.  DURAND,  DANIEL  HUNTINGTON, 

ANDREW  WARNER,  CEPHAS  G.  THOMPSON, 

JOHN  A.  WEEKES,  GEORGE  H.  MOORE,  LL.D. 

ASHER  B.   DURAND,  Chairman. 
ANDREW  WARNER,  Secretary. 

[The  President,  Librarian,  and  Chairman  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee are  members,  ex  officio,  of  the  Committee  on  the  Fine  Arts.] 


PROCEEDINGS. 


AT  a  meeting  of  the  NEW  YORK  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  held  in  its 
Hall,  on  Tuesday,  November  16,  1886,  lo  celebrate  the  Eighty- 
second  Anniversary  of  the  Founding  of  the  Society  : 

The  exercises  were  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev.  THOMAS  E. 
VERMILYE,  D.D.,  Senior  Minister  of  the  Reformed  (Dutch)  Church. 

The  President,  BENJAMIN  H.  FIELD,  Esq.,  introduced  the  Rev. 
GEORGE  E.  ELLIS,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society,  who  then  delivered  the  Anniversary  Address,  on 
"  The  Opening,  the  Use,  and  the  Future  of  our  Domain  on  this 
Continent." 

Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  address,  the  Hon.  JOHN  JAY  rose 
and  said  : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  rise  to  offer  a  resolution,  which  I  am  sure  will  be 
cordially  responded  to  by  this  Society,  whose  Eighty-second  Anniversary 
has  been  honored  by  the  admirable  discourse  of  our  learned  and  dis- 
tinguished friend  from  Massachusetts. 

"  During  his  honorable  and  useful  career  as  historian  and  divine,  Dr. 
ELLIS  has  done  great  service  to  American  history  by  his  varied  and  in- 
valuable contributions  on  subjects  extending  from  the  early  colonists  to 
our  own  times.  To-night,  after  his  delightful  and  graphic  reminiscences 
of  scenes  in  the  history  of  this  Society,  and  connected  with  eminent  states- 
men, which  some  of  us  well  remember,  Dr.  ELLIS  has  discussed  the  open- 
ing and  uses  of  our  national  domain,  and  has  closed  his  review  of  four 
hundred  years  of  its  past  history  by  glancing  at  its  future.  This  reminds 
us  that  the  future  of  our  national  domain  loomed  up  in  the  far  distance 
before  the  searching  and  jealous  gaze  of  European  statesmen  more  than 
a  century  ago. 

"  When  the  Bourbon  courts  of  Paris  and  Madrid  secretly  conspired 
in  the  plot,  so  happily  discovered  and  defeated  by  the  American  Com- 


missioners,  and  now  so  fully  developed  in  the  confidential  correspondence 
of  the  French  archives,  published  by  M.  de  Circourt,  the  plot  to  confine 
our  young  Republic  to  a  narrow  strip  along  the  Atlantic,  which  should 
never  be  enlarged  except  by  the  joint  consent  of  the  powers  of  Europe  ; 
to  restrict  our  western  and  northern  boundaries  ;  to  deprive  us  of  the 
fisheries  and  the  Mississippi,  whose  importance  was  alluded  to  by  Dr. 
ELLIS,  and  which  to-day,  with  its  affluents,  gives  us  35,000  miles  of  navi- 
gation— during  the  pendency  of  that  plot,  one  of  those  far-sighted  diplo- 
mats predicted  that  the  Republic,  then  an  infant,  would  become  a  giant. 

"  To-day  the  world  recognizes  the  fulfilment  of  that  prediction,  and 
Mr.  Gladstone  says  that  we  have  '  a  natural  basis  for  the  greatest  con- 
tinuous empire  ever  established  by  man.'  Another  English  author  re- 
marks that  ten  years  in  the  history  of  America  is  half  a  century  of 
European  progress.  The  London  Times  admits  that  our  development 
in  the  West  is  the  most  important  fact  in  contemporary  history,  and  a 
striking  exhibit  of  the  magnitude  and  resources  of  our  national  domain 
is  given  in  Dr.  Strong's  startling  work,  "  Our  Country  ;  its  Possible 
Future  and  Present  Crisis." 

"  The  whole  subject,  and  the  grave  responsibility  resting  on  this  gen- 
eration to  preserve  our  American  institutions  and  principles  against  the 
overwhelming  tide  of  foreign  emigration,  to  teach  the  new-comers,  as  Dr. 
ELLIS  says,  to  reverence  and  cherish  the  institutions  by  which  they  are 
protected,  are  engaging  the  grave  attention  of  our  thoughtful  citizens, 
and  the  discourse  of  this  evening,  apart  from  its  historical  value,  is  valu- 
able and  timely.  I  have  the  honor,  Mr.  President,  to  submit  the  follow- 
ing resolution  : 

"Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society  be 
presented  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  GEORGE  E.  ELLIS  for  the  able,  learned,  and 
instructive  address  which  he  has  delivered  this  evening,  and  that  he  be 
requested  to  furnish  a  copy  for  publication." 

The  Rev.  HOWARD  CROSBY,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  rose  and  said  that  it 
gave  him  great  pleasure  to  second  the  fitting  resolution,  offered  by 
Mr.  JAY,  which  he  was  sure  would  meet  a  hearty  and  unanimous  re- 
sponse of  approval  from  the  members  present,  who  had  listened  with 
such  manifest  gratification,  appreciative  interest,  and  rapt  attention 
to  the  eloquent  and  instructive  address  of  the  learned  President  of 
our  sister  Society.  The  address  embodied  the  clear-sighted  thought 
and  admirable  historical  philosophy  to  be  expected  from  the  schol- 
arly methods,  notable  ability,  and  deep  research  of  the  speaker  in 
ttoe  field  of  learning  with  which  his  name  and  life-long  labors  have 
been  so  honorably  identified.  He  hoped  that  a  copy  would  be  se- 
cured for  publication  under  the  Society's  auspices,  as  a  charming 


and  suggestive  contribution  to  our  historical  literature,  which,  it 
seemed  to  him,  it  was  at  once  the  duty  and  privilege  of  the  Society 
to  offer  to  the  student  of  our  country's  career. 

General  WILLIAM  T.  SHERMAN  rose  to  express  his  personal  grati- 
fication at  the  address,  and  called  attention  to  that  portion  of  it 
which  referred  to  the  rapidity  of  the  country's  progress  during  the 
present  century.  He  then  anecdotically  depicted  some  of  the  strik- 
ing contrasts  and  changes  which  it  had  been  his  lot  to  witness,  he 
might  say,  in  nearly  all  the  zones  of  our  national  domain.  The  ex- 
tinction of  the  buffalo  and  disappearance  of  the  Indian,  which  he 
himself  had  seen  in  different  parts  of  the  spacious  West,  giving  al- 
most immediate  place  to  great  cities  of  commerce  and  civilization, 
marked  the  peculiar  era  of  our  generation  and  nation.  The  liberty- 
loving  people  of  those  communities,  far  and  wide,  he  felt  could  be 
relied  upon,  as  they  already  had  been,  for  their  unwavering  public 
spirit  and  patriotism  in  any  moment  of  concern  or  danger  to  their 
country,  whose  institutions  they  love  and  cherish  as  they  do  their 
homes.  He  had  listened  with  the  deepest  appreciation  to  the  con- 
cise philosophical  survey  of  the  country's  history,  and  the  sagacious 
and  patriotic  suggestions  as  to  its  future,  contained  in  the  excellent 
and  able  address  of  Dr.  ELLIS,  and  took  especial  pleasure  in  further- 
ing the  resolution  submitted  by  Mr.  JAY. 

The  resolution  was  then  adopted  unanimously. 

A  benediction  was  pronounced  by  the  Rev.  ROBERT  COLLYER, 
D.D.,  Pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Messiah. 

The  Society  then  adjourned. 

Extract  from  the  Minutes  : 

ANDREW  WARNER, 

Recording  Secretary. 


THE  OPENING,  THE  USE,  AND  THE  FUT- 
URE OF  OUR  DOMAIN  ON  THIS  CON- 
TINENT. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  MEMBERS  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  HIS- 
TORICAL SOCIETY  : 

THIS  is  the  third  occasion  on  which,  at  long  intervals  of 
years,  I  have  been  privileged  to  attend  your  annual  meeting. 
Twice,  as  a  silent  listener  and  observer,  as  then  became  my 
youth,  I  was  here  as  a  delegate  of  the  Massachusetts  Histor- 
ical Society — your  elder  sister,  to  which  you  had  sent  invita- 
tions for  representation  at  your  fortieth  and  fiftieth  anniversary 
observances.  I  well  recall  the  occasion  when,  in  November, 
1844,  then  the  youngest  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Soci- 
ety, I  was  honored  by  being  sent  here  with  such  associates 
as  John  Ouincy  Adams  and  Leverett  Saltonstall.  The  occasion 
was  one  of  great  interest  to  you  and  your  guests,  who  were 
received  by  your  President,  Albert  Gallatin.  The  annual 
address  was  delivered  by  Mr.  Brodhead,  who  had  just  returned 
from  the  European  mission  on  which  he  was  sent  to  obtain 
documents  illustrative  of  the  history  of  your  State.  He  gave 
an  admirable  account  of  his  well-rewarded  researches.  The 
New  York  Hotel  was  opened  for  the  first  time  for  a  luxurious 
banquet  on  the  occasion. 

Of  your  guests,  the  most  distinguished  and  the  most 
vivacious  of  the  after-dinner  speakers  was  Mr.  Adams,  then 
in  his  seventy-eighth  year.  The  unabated  fire  and  ardor 
of  his  stern  spirit,  as  you  may  read  in  his  journal  of  the 
period,  had  been  just  at  that  time  quickened  and  intensified 


io  The  Opening,  the  Use,  and  the  Future  of 

by  a  personal  challenge  of  his  veracity,  made  by  Andrew 
Jackson  and  others  of  his  political  foes.  From  such  a  hateful 
charge,  he  gloried  that  he  could  vindicate  himself  by  his  care 
and  accuracy  in  keeping  and  filing  notes,  ephemeral  papers, 
and  records.  General  Jackson,  in  failure  of  memory,  had 
asserted,  that  during  a  stated  period  he  had  had  no  inter- 
course with  Mr.  Adams,  and  would  not  even  recognize  him. 
The  triumphantly  indignant  journalizer  had  shown  me,  as 
we  came  on  in  the  cars,  an  autograph  note  of  General  Jackson, 
courteously  accepting  his  invitation  to  dinner  at  that  very 
time.  On  the  back  of  the  note  were  the  names  of  the 
guests,  Jackson's  among  them.  Mr.  Adams  being  toasted, 
or,  as  he  wrote,  "  rather  being  roasted,"  by  a  compliment 
from  Governor  Bradish,  calling  him  up  from  the  table,  made 
a  keen  and  incisive  speech.  I  well  remember  his  advice  to 
young  men  looking  to  public  life,  to  interest  themselves  in 
historical  societies,  and  to  make  and  preserve  important  min- 
utes and  records  of  historical  and  personal  matters.  "  Then," 
said  he,  pointing  his  advice  with  his  stinging  finger,  twirling 
like  the  snapper  of  a  six-horse  whip-lash,  "  if  ever  the  tongue 
of  Slander  assails  you,  you  can  vindicate  yourselves." 

In  1854  I  was  here  again  as  a  delegate  at  your  fiftieth 
anniversary,  the  address  being  by  Mr.  Bancroft,  while  the 
eloquence  of  the  Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  at  the  banquet 
at  the  Astor  House,  conveyed  to  you  the  response  from  the 
delegation  of  the  Massachusetts  Society. 

On  this  occasion,  you  have  done  me  the  honor  of  inviting 
me  to  be  the  speaker.  How  shall  I  use  the  opportunity  ?  I 
should  not  presume  to  offer  you  a  theme  relating  to  your  own 
State  history  ;  nor  should  I  care  to  deal  with  any  matter 
specially  concerning  the  people  or  the  annals  of  my  own  State. 
Allow  me,  then,  to  take  a  theme  which  includes  us  both,  and 
more.  A  large  and  all-comprehensive  subject  allures  me, 
and  you  may  judge  it  not  unmeet  for  the  occasion.  It  is  as 
vast  as  the  territory  of  our  own  national  domain  ;  it  is  free  on 
every  side,  open  to  the  air  all  around  us,  grand  and  rich  and 
picturesque,  and  burdened  with  momentous  lessons — of  actors, 
incidents,  and  results. 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  n 


THE  OPENING,  THE  USE,  AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  OUR  DO- 
MAIN ON  THIS  CONTINENT. 

The  theme  is  one  in  which  wild  fancy,  imagination,  ro- 
mantic adventure  had  the  start  ;  to  be  displaced  in  due  time 
by  stern  realities,  by  sober  facts,  through  toils  and  tragic  in- 
cidents, by  enterprise,  and  by  scientific  processes  of  strict 
method  and  rewarding  results.  A  picturesque  past,  a  mar- 
vellously prosperous  present,  a  shadowy  but  hopeful  future. 
It  is  the  story  of  the  opening  of  a  New  World  to  human 
knowledge  and  use.  It  can  never  be  repeated,  either  in  its 
wholeness  or  in  its  larger  incidents  in  human  experience,  un- 
less men  can  open  communication  with  a  neighbor  planet. 
The  theme  is  so  vast  that  it  must  find  its  attraction  and  inter- 
est rather  in  the  crowding  and  shifting  of  scenes  and  events 
furnished  to  musing  minds  than  in  any  adequate  rehearsal 
of  it. 

We  have  to  trace  a  process  through  nearly  four  completed 
centuries.  Estimated  by  the  life-term  of  an  individual,  the 
process  has  been  a  long  one.  It  has  had  its  intervals  of  slow 
and  of  rapid  progress,  most  vigorous  and  on  the  grandest  scale 
in  the  last  half-century.  It  has  had  its  shocks  and  its  surprises. 
All  the  leading  nationalities  of  the  other  half  of  the  globe  have 
had  part  in  it ;  and  the  diverse  characteristics  of  those  nation- 
alities have  been  signally  illustrated  in  methods  and  results. 

Two  distinct  stages  are  marked  in  the  opening  of  this  con- 
tinent to  knowledge  and  use.  The  first  is  that  under  the 
prompting  of  curiosity  and  adventure,  quickened  by  greed, 
fed  by  unintelligent  wonder,  passing  by  enterprise  and  ex- 
ploration for  rational  and  substantial  purposes  into  the  sec- 
ond stage,  chiefly  within  this  last  century — in  which  the  main 
impulse  has  been  to  certify  positive  facts  by  actual  econom- 
ical and  scientific  studies  of  the  features  and  resources  of 
the  continent,  for  permanent  occupancy  and  the  enriching  re- 
sults of  development.  The  process  began  under  the  quicken- 
ing but  beguiling  spur  of  fancy  ;  it  has  passed  in  our  time  into 
the  gatherings  and  attestations  of  sober  facts.  The  change 


12  The  Opening  >  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

realized  in  its  fulness  may  be  stated  thus.  In  the  school 
geographies  and  maps  of  the  boyhood  of  many  still  living, 
the  vast  and  unexplored  region  lying  mostly  between  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  was  set  down  in  dismal 
and  forbidding  shadow,  as  the  "  Great  American  Desert,"  as 
if  it  were  a  larger  Sahara.  That  region  now,  as  set  forth  on 
our  railroad  maps,  divided  by  the  boundaries  of  magnificent 
States  is  strewn  with  sumptuous  cities,  whose  homes  and 
public  buildings  have  extinguished  all  the  features  of  the 
wilderness. 

Perhaps  the  one  most  striking  result  reached  by  the  open- 
ino-  of  this  continent  is  that  which,  so  wonderful  in  its  method, 

& 

has  already  lost  its  surprise  for  us — by  which  we  have  a  daily 
prophecy,  presented  to  us  on  the  sea-board,  of  the  weather 
indications,  computed  and  decided  for  us  by  air  and  storm- 
currents  passing  through  mountains  and  valleys  in  the  inner 
depths  of  the  continent,  reported  by  the  electric  wires  to  a 
central  bureau.  What  pioneers  and  explorers  must  have  ac- 
complished to  render  possible  and  available  those  atmospheric 
calculations  from  storm-centres  and  currents,  through  moun- 
tain and  valley,  is  a  grand  illustration  of  the  process  by 
which  science  reaches  its  highest  fruitage  through  materials 
for  the  labor  of  the  brain  on  materials  wrought  out  by  brain 
and  muscle.  Passengers  on  mid-ocean  have  said  that,  in  think- 
ing upon  the  cable  that  runs  under  the  waves,  they  have  had 
a  feeling  of  a  sort  of  home  comfort  and  security.  The  feeling 
must  be  rather  undefinable.  But  those  "  talking  wires,"  as  the 
Indians  on  the  plains  call  them,  which  weave  our  continent, 
as  in  a  loom  for  home  fabrics,  have  a  strange  power  of  neu- 
tralizing the  sense  of  remoteness  over  vast  expanses. 

To  the  first  discoverers  and  explorers  most  justly  accrued 
the  privilege  and  responsibility  of  attaching  names  to  objects 
and  localities  all  new  to  them.  These  names,  titles,  epi- 
thets, given  as  chance  or  fancy  or  some  subtle  working  of 
memory,  reverence,  or  the  associative  instinct  might  prompt, 
were  assigned  spontaneously,  generally  with  little  thought 
or  regard  for  fitness.  The  natural  features  of  these  novel, 
strange  scenes  and  objects  would  affect  first  the  senses,  and 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  13 

only  vaguely  and  gradually  engage  the  mind.  There  was  a 
double  purpose  to  be  kept  in  view  in  attaching  these  names 
and  epithets  to  objects  and  natural  features,  as  successively 
disclosed  to  foreign  eyes.  The  first  was,  to  identify  a  spot 
or  scene  for  subsequent  recognition  ;  and  the  second,  to  aid 
in  the  preparation  of  maps  and  charts.  Of  course,  in  both 
cases  the  intent  was  to  establish  sovereign  and  national  claims 
to  new  territories.  In  this  assigning  of  names  and  epithets, 
it  is  not  strange  that  the  privilege  and  responsibility  ex- 
ceeded the  exercise  of  judgment  and  good  sense — certainly, 
in  many  cases,  of  good  taste.  The  new  scenes  broke  on  the 
view  of  discoverers  as  surprises,  and  then  received  their 
names  from  the  emotions  which  they  excited. 

There  are  often  earnest  and  perplexed  debates  in  house- 
holds, in  which  the  birth  of  a  child  is  anxiously  awaited, 
as  to  the  name  which  it  shall  bear.  The  contingency  of  sex 
must  be  allowed  for.  When  that  is  decided,  choice  is  free, 
but  often  embarrassed.  Discretion  and  good  sense  gener- 
ally confine  themselves  to  familiar  household  names.  There 
are  risks  involved  in  the  indulgence  of  eccentric  fancies  and 
pet  preferences.  Blanche  does  not  prove  a  fitting  baptis- 
mal name  for  a  girl  who  grows  up  with  the  complexion  of 
an  Indian  ;  nor  does  Grace  or  Lily  become  the  unlovely  or 
the  aggressive  of  their  sex.  There  are  many  men  and  women 
around  us  who  fret  through  their  lives  under  the  names  they 
are  compelled  to  bear.  When  this  continent  was  born  to  the 
light  for  the  eyes  of  adventurers  from  the  other  half  of  the 
planet,  the  whole  expanse,  as  one,  and  every  spot  and  scene 
in  it,  of  land  and  water  awaited  a  name.  Happily  the  names 
first  assigned  were  not  necessarily  permanent  or  unchange- 
able, and  many  of  them  very  soon  had  an  alias.  National 
rivalries,  signal  events  of  war  or  disaster,  historic  incidents, 
the  names  of  illustrious  persons,  and  lingering  memories  of 
aborigines  have  each  a  share  in  our  territorial  vocabulary. 

How  did  the  first  navigators  and  explorers  from  the  Old 
World  use  this  privilege  and  responsibility  of  assigning  names 
and  epithets  to  the  objects  which  their  eyes  first  beheld  here  ? 
Very  clear  and  sensible  is  the  statement  made  by  Dionise 


14  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Fiiture  of 

Settle,  the  scribe  of  the  account  of  the  second  voyage  of 
"Master  Martin  Frobisher "  to  our  north  and  northwest 
coasts,  in  1597,  as  given  in  Hakluyt.  He  writes:  "  I  have 
also  left  the  names  of  the  countries  on  both  shores  [of  the 
great  bays]  untouched,  for  lack  of  understanding  the  people's 
language  ;  as  also  for  sundry  respects  not  needful  as  yet  to 
be  declared.  Countries  new  explored,  where  commodity  is 
to  be  looked  for,  do  better  accord  with  a  new  name  given  by 
the  explorers  than  an  uncertain  name  by  a  doubtful  author. 
Our  general  (Frobisher)  named  sundry  islands,  mountains, 
capes,  and  harbours  after  the  names  of  divers  noblemen,  and 
other  gentlemen,  his  friends,  as  well  on  the  one  shore  as  also 
on  the  other." 

This  last  statement  reminds  us  of  the  fact,  that  the  north- 
ern and  northwestern  lands  and  waters  of  our  continent, 
more  aptly  and  faithfully  than  those  of  any  other  part,  pre- 
serve the  names  of  the  bold  adventurers  and  their  patrons. 

The  first  comers  were  generally  ready  to  accept,  at  least 
temporarily,  the  names  of  islands,  mountains,  streams,  etc., 
given  them  by  the  natives,  when  they  could  be  caught  by  the 
ear  or  spoken  by  the  foreign  tongue.  The  merest  chance  or 
passing  incident  often  attached  the  name  or  epithet.  The 
Spaniards  and  the  French  had  a  full  repertory  for  lavish  use 
furnished  them  in  the  sanctities  and  calendar  of  their  creed 
and  church — their  saints  and  holy  days  and  sacraments.  The 
heroic  and  all-suffering  missionaries  of  the  Church  are  most 
worthily  identified  with  the  scenes  of  their  toil.  Still  the 
sprinkling  over  this  fresh  continent  of  more  than  one  series  of 
names  presents,  on  the  whole,  a  curious  conglomerate  of  asso- 
ciations. Most  incongruous,  even  painful — if  one  pauses  to 
think  of  it — as  he  traces  the  historic  pathway,  of  invaders  and 
devastators,  are  the  sacred  epithets  strewn  over  our  isles  and 
main-lands,  so  many  of  which  are  associated  with  some  dark 
atrocity.  It  is  a  relief  in  many  cases  to  get  back  to  names 
of  native  use,  and  to  retain  only  the  fairest  and  the  best.  We 
will  not  grudge  to  the  great  Bishop  of  Hippo  his  standing 
as  god-father  to  the  oldest  of  our  cities,  St.  Augustine.  St. 
Laurence  at  the  north  and  St.  Mary  at  the  south  may  well 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  15 

keep  their  guardianship  over  historic  streams.  The  whimsical 
Hennepin  may  be  left  as  sponsor  for  St.  Anthony's  Falls,  and 
St.  Louis  may  endlessly  hold  the  memory  of  the  monarch  of 
France.  Not  without  suggestions  of  gleams  of  humor  are  some 
of  the  designations  assigned  by  the  first  sight-seers  here,  and 
the  substitutions  for  them.  What  is  now  known  as  the  beau- 
tiful Isle  of  Orleans,  in  the  St.  Lawrence,  was  first  seen  by 
Jacques  Cartier,  richly  clad  in  vines.  He  being  a  Breton 
called  it  He  de  Bacchus.  Next  came  the  Normans,  who,  hav- 
ing pulled  up  the  vines,  chose  to  call  the  island  Pomona  and 
Ceres.  New  Spain,  New  France,  New  Holland,  New  Eng- 
land, and  New  Sweden  are  names  by  which  the  whole  or 
large  expanses  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States  have  suc- 
cessively been  known.  Most  fitting  is  it  that  the  rushing, 
turbid  stream  which  divides  the  length  of  our  domain  should 
part  with  its  Spanish  name  as  the  "  River  of  the  Holy  Spirit," 
and  resume  its  Indian  title  as  the  Mississippi. 

There  is  a  graver  matter  concerning  the  bestowment  of 
names  for  this  continent,  which  involves  alike  historic  and 
poetic  justice  as  touching  the  rights  and  the- just  fame  of  the 
great  discoverer.  Most  happy  was  the  anticipation  before  the 
fact  was  certified,  that  immediately  assigned  to  the  disclosures 
made  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  of  the  appellation  of  the  "  New 
World."  Most  remarkable,  too,  was  it,  that  the  epithet  was  in 
direct  contradiction  of  the  belief  of  the  great  admiral,  his 
companions,  and  many  of  his  successors.  He  had  no  idea  that 
he  had  found  a  new  world.  On  the  contrary,  he  believed 
that  he  had  found  what  alone  he  had  been  seeking  for — a  part 
of  the  Old  World,  reached  by  a  new  route.  He  died  in  the 
belief  that  he  had  touched  an  outlying  island  off  the  main-land 
of  the  old  Cathay,  or  India.  He  had  no  knowledge  or  idea 
of  the  wide-reaching  continent  and  the  vast  sea  which  lay  be- 
tween. It  was  only  on  his  third  voyage,  in  1495,  that  he  had 
touched  the  narrows  of  the  main-land  of  the  continent  at  the 
Gulf  of  Paria.  And  the  Cabots  had  sighted  our  northern 
coasts  a  year  earlier  than  Columbus'  view  of  the  southern. 

How  was  it  that  Columbus  was  defrauded  of  the  right 
that   his    name,  as    something   synonymous   with  the   New 


1 6  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

World,  should  be  borne  by  the  whole,  while  the  names  of  a 
host  of  navigators  after  him  are  attached  to  gulfs  and  straits 
and  bays,  to  lakes  and  rivers,  to  States  and  mountains  ? 
Your  own  Society,  in  1845,  initiated  and  invited  the  co-oper- 
ation of  other  societies  in  the  project  for  considering  "the 
expediency  of  the  adoption  by  this  country  of  a  national 
name."  The  main  intent,  doubtless,  was  to  do  justice  to 
Columbus.  Other  names  suggested,  as  "  The  Republic  of 
Allegania,"  "  The  Republic  of  Washington,"  did  not  find 
favor.  The  project  failed.  It  was  in  a  reply  made  by  John 
Quincy  Adams,  in  behalf  of  a  committee  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Society,  to  your  solicitation,  that  the  venerable  pa- 
triot used  this  strong  language:  "The  name  of  '  America,' 
irretrievably  stamped  by  uncompromising  usage  upon  both 
continents  of  the  new  hemisphere,  is  a  perpetual  memorial 
of  human  injustice,  by  conferring  upon  one  man  a  crown 
of  glory  justly  due  to  another."  This  "irretrievable  "  wrong, 
by  which  this  continent  takes  its  name,  not  from  Colum- 
bus, but  from  Amerigo  Vespucci,  is  all  the  more  to  be  re- 
gretted, because  seemingly  unaccounted  for  and  accidental. 

Whether  Vespucci  had  really  anticipated  both  the  Cabots 
and  Columbus  in  sighting  our  coasts,  is  a  question  which 
seems  now  to  be  hopeless  of  decision.  All  known  authorities 
which  bear  directly  or  even  indirectly  upon  it  are.  inconclu- 
sive. For  only  Vespucci  himself,  without  a  shadow  of  sup- 
port, is  the  authority  for  a  voyage  made  in  our  waters  in 
1497  5  though  he  was  not  in  his  lifetime  charged  with  in- 
justice on  the  score  of  his  claim.  His  name  is  not  found  on 
any  map  of  the  country  till  after  his  death.  The  inexplicable 
and  seemingly  unwarrantable  hap  by  which  a  name  was  at- 
tached to  our  whole  continent  has  naturally  been  followed  by 
confusion  and  unfitness  in  the  consequences  which  have  fol- 
lowed it.  An  Englishman,  a  Frenchman,  German,  Italian, 
Scotchman,  or  Irishman,  all  the  world  over,  is  content  to  be 
called  by  his  local  name,  and  generally  will  insist  upon  it. 
But  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  as  if  to  minister  to  his 
alleged  vanity,  is  called  everywhere,  and  commonly  calls 
himself,  an  American  ;  thus  taking  a  name  from  a  whole  con- 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  17 

tinent.  His  contemporaries  on  the  southern  half  of  the  con- 
tinent, and  even  Mexicans  and  Canadians,  are  more  modest. 
In  a  convention  of  one  of  our  religious  fellowships  held  this 
year,  a  proposition  was  made  for  adopting  the  title  of  "  the 
Church  of  America" — again  a  claim  by  our  citizens  to  the 
whole  continent. 

In  connection  with  the  names  first  assigned  on  the  conti- 
nent to  places  and  natural  features,  there  is  much  that  is  sig- 
nificant in  the  terms  used  by  the  first  explorers  for  grouping 
objects  in  the  vast  panoramas  which  opened  before  them  as 
they  penetrated  within  the  country.  These  terms  are  large, 
but  vague,  suggesting  an  unknown  whole  from  a  fragment  of 
knowledge.  Many  of  these  terms  still  linger  in  use  ;  others 
have  been  displaced  by  more  defined  and  limited  substitutes. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  term  "  head-waters,"  as  applied  to  the 
original  sources  of  a  mighty  river,  as  one  stood  midway  along 
its  flow.  When  one  large  stream  was  perceived  to  be  the 
confluent  of  many  tributaries,  it  was  recognized  as  a  monarch 
sustained  by  as  yet  unknown  subjects,  or  at  least  as  a  prince 
of  the  region,  a  royal  magnate.  All  the  untraced  tributaries 
which  contributed  to  swell  it  were  called  its  "  head-waters," 
and  the  regions  through  which  they  flowed  became  provinces 
of  the  river-king.  These  tributaries  might  be  other  mighty 
streams,  with  their  tributaries  ;  or  the  outflow  of  mighty 
lakes  ;  or  the  ooze  of  vast  swampy  basins,  or  the  drain  of 
lofty  mountains.  "  Head-waters,"  indeed,  they  were.  The 
sky  had  as  much  to  do  in  contributing  to  them  as  had  the 
earth.  Many  great  national  treaties  have  been  complicated 
and  contested  by  that  grandly  vague  term  for  vast  unknown 
water-courses,  their  beds  and  springs.  The  term  was  easily 
and  glibly  spoken  and  written  ;  but  it  required  long,  contin- 
uous, and  extended  search  to  verify  it.  "A  divide"  is  an- 
other of  those  vague  terms,  designating  a  swelling  vertebra 
or  ridge  in  some  back-bone  of  the  whole,  or  of  a  section  of 
the  continent,  which  turned  the  rain-drops  and  the  flow  of  its 
springs  to  the  Arctic  Sea,  or  the  Southern  Gulf,  to  the  East- 
ern or  the  Western  Ocean.  What  a  difference  and  distance 
of  time,  progress,  and  familiarity  with  stupendous  natural  feat- 


1 8  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

ures  is  marked,  when  what  was  once  known  as  a  range  of 
mountains  is  all  taken  apart,  distributed  into  its  heights  and 
peaks  and  hills,  each  of  which  receives  its  separate  name  ! 
And  "  The  Forks,"  a  term  once  so  familiar,  as  designating  at 
combined  streams  the  spot  where  two  or  more  rolling  rivers 
unite  their  waters. 

We  are  struck  by  the  use  of  the  official  title  of  "  pilot," 
as  applied  to  a  very  important  and  trusted  seaman  on  each 
of  the  fleets  or  vessels,  beginning  with  those  of  Columbus, 
sailing  on  these  unknown  waters.  With  us  the  title  pilot 
suggests  a  thoroughly  trained  expert,  who,  in'succession  to 
and  with  the  help  of  the  experience  of  others,  has  been  edu- 
cated through  eye  and  ear  and  hand,  by  native  aptitude  and 
by  acquired  skill,  to  guide  a  vessel  in  familiar  waters  by 
known  signs  on  sea  and  land.  If  the  word  pilot  is  from  the 
old  French,  it  suggests  a  ship  ;  if  from  the  Dutch,  it  suggests 
a  plummet.  We  associate  a  pilot  with  harbor-waters  which 
are  familiar  to  him.  But  for  the  old  navigators,  qualities  and 
character  and  skill  took  the  place  of  knowledge  in  the  re- 
sponsible office.  An  eye  for  keen  study  of  color  and  cur- 
rents of  water,  an  ear  alert  for  the  sound  of  breakers,  a  ready 
hand  at  the  helm,  a  watchful  gaze  at  the  clouds,  aptness  in 
casting  the  lead,  and  a  wise  choice  of  a  place  of  anchorage 
were  the  credentials  of  the  trusted  leader  of  pioneer  seamen. 
Still,  these  self-relying  men  occasionally  met  the  experience 
of  the  Irish  pilot,  who,  on  being  asked  by  an  anxious  pas- 
senger on  his  vessel  if  he  knew  of  the  sunken  rocks  around 
him,  replied,  "Yes;"  and,  as  the  vessel  at  that  moment 
struck,  with  sharp  crash,  added,  "  and,  in  faith,  that's  one  of 
them." 

Much  the  same  as  to  the  difference  between  early  and 
modern  pilots  through  our  waters  may  be  said  of  guides  and 
pioneers  by  land  in  tracking  wilderness  scenes.  Even  na- 
tive guides  were  not  always  trustworthy,  and  were  often 
innocently,  blunderingly,  or  fraudulently  misleading.  The 
Indian  Tejos  led  Guzman  on  a  wild-goose  chase  after  the 
Seven  Cities  of  Cibola  ;  and  the  lying  Vignan  entrapped  the 
patient  and  confiding  Champlain  far  up  toward  the  Arctic 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  19 

waters,  where  he  pretended  that  he  had  seen  a  foreign  ship, 
that  had  come  in  through  the  coveted  ocean  pathway. 

In  the  full  view  of  the  disclosure  of  a  new  world  to  the 
earliest  visitors  from  the  Old  World,  we  are  profoundly  im- 
pressed by  the  range  of  the  alternatives  in  the  realities  which 
might  present  themselves.  These  alternatives  as  to  possible 
realities  and  results,  balanced,  as  we  shall  see,  the  most  mo- 
mentous consequences  in  the  opening  and  use  of  the  new 
continent,  and  suspend  in  deep  shadow  its  future. 

It  required  more  than  a  century  of  imagining  and  of  en- 
terprising to  assure  to  positive  knowledge  whether  this 
newly  revealed  territory  was  an  island,  an  archipelago,  or  a 
continent.  It  was  to  be  tracked  and  probed  and  tested, 
point  by  point,  for  all  its  secrets,  along  its  coasts,  through  its 
bays,  and  into  its  recesses.  And  then,  was  it  peopled  or 
unpeopled  ?  If  peopled,  how  was  humanity  represented 
here,  in  condition,  development,  and  resources  ?  Science, 
through  its  masters,  now  assures  us  that  this  continent,  by 
its  geological  antecedents  and  condition,  was  the  earliest 
section  of  the  globe  adapted  to  sustain  animal  and  human 
life.  A  scientific  speculation,  in  its  theories  of  evolution, 
development,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  might,  in  its  ap- 
plication here,  have  shown  a  race  highly  advanced  in  civili- 
zation, attainments,  and  power. 

It  was  for  the  new  comers  to  test  the  truth  on  this  wholly 
unknown  matter.  The  members  of  the  human  family  to  be 
met  in  these  strange  realms,  for  anything  known  or  to  be  im- 
agined to  the  contrary,  might  prove  to  be,  in  some  respects, 
the  superiors  of  their  visitors,  physically,  intellectually, 
socially,  and  certainly  morally — to  have  reached  a  higher 
stage  in  all  resources,  in  civilization,  art,  refinement,  govern- 
ment, wisdom,  and  power.  More  than  than  this  :  the  people 
disclosed  to  sight  and  knowledge  here  might  have  been 
heroic,  warlike,  proud,  and  skilled  in  prowess  and  defence. 
They  might  have  been  able  and  disposed  successfully  to 
withstand  and  resist  the  intruders  here,  driving  them  into 
the  sea,  or  triumphing  over  them  in  every  usurping  effort. 
They  might  have  exhibited  some  type  of  Asiatic  civilization, 


20  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

or  some  of  the  characteristic  qualities  of  the  Indians  of  the 
East,  which  it  was  supposed  would  be  found  here.  As  it 
proved,  the  inhabitants  were  found  to  be  but  rudimental 
people—children,  lacking  physical  virility.  Their  very  sim- 
plicity, which  might  have  drawn  to  them  a  considerate  ten- 
derness, if  not  humane  justice,  made  them  but  the  subjects 
of  a  grasping  and  cruel  rapacity  from  their  first  invaders. 

Another  most  serious  alternative  suspended  the  value  of 
the  prize  to  be  won  here  by  invasion  and  conquest.  The 
continent  in  the  whole,  or  in  large  portions  of  it,  might  have 
shown  itself  inhospitable,  even  uninhabitable — blasted  and 
scorched  by  volcanic  action,  desolate  as  the  surface  of  the 
moon  appears  through  the  peering  telescope.  Superstition 
was  lively  at  the  period  of  the  discovery  to  imagine  all  sorts 
of  marvels  and  monsters  as  keeping  guard  on  the  continent, 
and  warning  ofif  intruders.  Had  there  been  a  lack  of  indig- 
enous food,  animal  or  vegetable,  or  of  potable  water,  only 
the  strongest  lure  of  gold  and  pearls  would  have  encouraged 
a  renewal  of  visits. 

All  these  alternative  conditions,  when  ignorance  should 
yield  to  knowledge,  were  suspended  in  uncertainty  for  the 
first  comers.  The  process  of  verifying  was  slow  and  tenta- 
tive, quickened  by  greed  and  an  enormous  enthusiasm,  in- 
spired by  what  stood  for  religious  faith.  Take  into  one  full 
view  the  process  of  this  revealing.  As  already  suggested, 
there  can  be  no  repetition  of  it  for  those  living  on  this  earth. 
It  may  be  that  this  globe  is  not  exhausted  of  surprises  in 
scenes  and  objects  grand  and  startling,  wondrous  and  sublime, 
for  the  first  human  eyes  that  shall  gaze  upon  them.  But  when 
and  where  shall  again  be  revealed  to  the  gazer  such  an  awing 
and  gorgeous  view  as  Balbo  de  Nunez  beheld,  when,  after 
climbing  the  ocean-peak,  where  our  continent  is  nearly  severed 
by  the  isthmus,  he  looked  out  upon  the  Pacific  Sea  ?  Colum- 
bus, Verrazano,  the  Cabots,  Cartier,  Gilbert,  Raleigh,  John 
Smith,  Champlain,  Cortes,  De  Soto,  La  Salle,  and  a  few 
others  were  first  to  be  admitted  to  a  private  view  of  the 
grand  features  of  the  New  World.  True,  Humboldt,  in  his 
turn  as  an  explorer, .saw  more,  and  knew  more  about  what 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  21 

he  saw,  than  did  all  these  first  gazers  ;  but,  for  the  most  part, 
he  knew  what  he  was  to  see.  It  is  this  mystery  of  ignorant 
expectation  for  revealings  to  human  intelligence  and  effort, 
which  gives  the  inspiration  of  endeavor  and  endurance  to 
man,  kindles  his  enthusiasm,  and  revives  his  hope.  There 
was  something  near  akin,  in  the  feelings  and  longings  of  the 
first  comers  to  this  new  world  as  they  waited  for  its  reveal- 
ings,  to  those  which  engage  the  last  thoughts  of  human  be- 
ings passing  from  an  earthly  life,  as  they  brood  upon  the 
august  and  awful  problems  of  the  life  to  come. 

How  fascinating  and  enthralling  were  the  scenes  which, 
either  in  some  vast  massings  and  groupings  or  in  some  sur- 
prise of  nature,  burst  upon  the  gaze  of  the  first  explorers  ! 
Some  of  them — perhaps  they  were  the  few — had  the  sense,  the 
appreciation,  to  take  in  the  aspects  of  grandeur  and  beauty. 
We  have  many  touches  of  awe,  pathos,  and  graceful  descrip- 
tion from  their  pens.  The  first  impression  from  all  scenes 
and  objects  would  come  in  the  form  of  contrasts  with  all  to 
which  they  had  been  wonted  in  the  Old  World.  They  had 
come  from  scenes  where  human  life  was  drear  and  jaded, 
often  dull  and  spiritless,  worn  by  toil,  disappointment,  and 
jarring  passions  ;  where  everything  for  sight,  use,  or  value 
was  appropriated  by  an  owner  ;  where  bounds  and  walls  and 
fences  marked  individual  rights  ;  fields  and  cities  that  had 
been  scarred  by  war ;  fortified  and  battlemented  strongholds, 
castles,  palaces,  churches,  ruins,  and  cemeteries.  Here  nature 
was  wild,  fresh,  and  exuberant,  free  from  task-work.  In  the 
view  of  the  first  comers  the  continent  had  no  owners,  even  if 
it  had  claimants  and  occupants.  Some  adobe  walls,  without 
grace  or  proportions,  were  all  that  could  be  called  structures. 
Humanity — if  any  of  the  creatures  roaming  here  deserved  the 
title — were  patterned  after  a  strange,  poor  fashion. 

Rich  in  its  illustration  of  the  energies  and  resources,  the 
heroisms,  the  vices,  and  the  follies  of  human  nature  is  the 
progressive  rehearsal  of  the  history  of  the  opening  of  this  con- 
tinent. All  the  motive  impulses  of  every  tone  and  tinge  and 
essence  which  have  sway  in  the  human  breast  have  here  found 
their  field,  their  quickening,  their  aliment,  and  their  retribu- 


22  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

tive  experiences.  We  might  give  an  exhaustive  inventory 
of  all  that  there  is  in  capacity,  in  inspiration  and  constancy  of 
aim,  in  fortitude  and  recuperative  courage,  in  the  range  of 
man's  endowments  or  acquisitions,  as  drawn  out  here.  They 
are  all  but  tamely  expressed  by  such  words  as  enterprise  or 
adventure.  Passions  wrought  to  a  fever  heat,  longings  and 
expectations  absolutely  unbounded  in  their  scope  and  inten- 
sity, and  visions  borrowing  more  from  unrealities  than  from 
verities  became  the  ordinary  diet  of  the  prime  agents  in  these 
achievements.  The  belief  in  a  fountain  here,  the  bathing  in 
whose  waters  would  renew  and  perpetuate  youth  for  human 
heart  and  limbs,  seemed  to  be  but  in  harmony  with  the  means 
and  delights  for  renewing  here  a  prolonged  and  varying  feast 
on  life's  banquets  and  revels. 

What  rich  and  exhaustless  material  for  art,  for  the  painter 
and  the  poet,  is  laid  by  in  the  progressive  revealings  and  oc- 
cupancy of  this  continent !  The  scene  and  subject  suggested 
may  be  of  groups  of  races,  strange  to  each  other  as  they  met 
in  our  inner  wildernesses  as  friends  or  foes,  and  furnished  the 
beginnings  of  our  history.  The  occasions  were  not  all  hostile 
or  tragic.  Romance,  humor  even,  are  not  lacking.  The  field 
is  a  rich  one  for  a  succession  of  "  Knickerbockers,"  in  text  and 
illustration.  The  scenes  and  examples  are  most  suggestive, 
in  the  cases  of  solitary  pioneers. 

There  are  two  classes  of  names  or  epithets  by  which,  as 
alternates  or  moral  distinctions,  we  may  characterize  the  acts 
and  actors  standing  out  in  signal  prominence  among  the  navi- 
gators, the  invaders,  the  explorers  and  conquerors  of  the 
waters  and  lands  of  the  New  World.  Shall  we  allow  their 
chivalrous  prowess  to  assure  to  them  a  noble  name,  or  shall 
we  describe  them  from  their  spirits  and  deeds  as  pirates, 
marauders,  and  desperadoes,  goaded  by  cupidity,  rapacity,  and 
inhumanity  ?  To  extend  the  empire  of  their  respective  sov- 
ereigns over  unknown  realms  ;  to  enrich  old,  impoverished 
states  ;  to  convert  and  humanize  heathen  and  barbarous 
peoples— were  the  motives  assigned  in  royal  licenses  and  char- 
ters as  the  commission  of  those  adventurers  by  land  and  sea. 
But  even  those  three  paramount  and  noble  objects  might  be 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  23 

found  not  to  run  harmoniously  in  one  course,  and  they  were 
subject  to  complications,  interference,  and  rivalries  from  many 
personal  ends  and  minor  aims,  as  well  as  from  warring  na- 
tional sovereignties.  The  assumption  from  the  start,  that  what- 
ever there  might  be  here  of  people  or  of  goods  was  to  be  re- 
garded as  spoil,  as  fair  booty,  to  be  appropriated  by  the  new 
comers,  gave  a  hard  character  to  the  whole  achievement,  not 
to  be  relieved. 

The  romance,  the  glamour,  and  chivalry  of  those  so-called 
conquests  are  features  of  them  which  they  may  have  for  us, 
but  which  did  not  show  themselves  to  those  children  of  nature, 
whose  gentle  welcome  received  the  first  comers  as  heavenly 
visitors,  and  who  never  afterward  lost  their  amazement  over 
the  rapacity  and  cruelty  of  their  invaders  as  transcending  all 
the  passions  of  their  own  heathen  hearts.  The  fiendish  atro- 
cities which  wrought  such  havoc  on  the  islands  were  repeated 
on  the  main  in  the  track  of  Cortes  through  Mexico,  and  the 
raiding,  reckless,  and  tragic  coursing  through  Florida  of  De 
Soto. 

The  slowly  progressive  stages  of  the  opening  of  this  con- 
tinent, its  coasts  and  its  interior,  to  positive  knowledge,  as  a 
substitute  for  blank  ignorance  and  fanciful  conjecture,  have 
left  singularly  interesting  historical  illustrations  in  an  almost 
unbroken  series  of  maps,  charts,  and  itineraries.  It  is  less 
than  a  hundred  years — namely,  in  1795 — since  the  first  en- 
graved map  of  the  whole  American  continent  was  executed. 
The  three  preceding  centuries  were  all  laboriously  and  in- 
geniously spent  in  gathering  and  certifying  the  materials  for 
it.  As  we  look  through  the  series  now  extant  of  the  draw- 
ings, profiles,  sketches,  and  conjectured  localities,  from  the 
first  navigators  and  explorers  who  had  made  sure  of  one  or 
more  spots  in  space,  and  were  free  to  imagine  its  relations  to 
the  unknown  around  it,  we  are  left  to  muse  over  the  relations 
which  any  present  moment  of  time  bears  to  the  two  eternities 
before  and  after  it.  But  in  the  case  of  these  first  adventurers, 
as  in  all  other  enterprises,  a  beginning  of  a  process  well  as- 
sured was  the  pledge  of  progress.  We  have  some  very  early 
maps,  which  ventured  wholly  by  conjecture  to  set  forth  what 


24  The  Opening,   the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

was  supposed  to  be  the  whole  of  this  unveiled  world,  made 
by  those  who  saw  only  some  few  miles  of  its  coast  from  their 
vessels.  The  first  query  to  dispose  of,  when  they  disembarked 
upon  firm  soil,  was  whether  they  were  upon  a  continent  or 
an  island.  The  vast  bays  and  estuaries  on  our  coast,  which 
are  land-locked,  though  one  sailing  upon  them  may  see  no 
land  on  either  side,  baffled  many  navigators.  The  assump- 
tion made  from  the  first,  and  by  all  of  them,  that  there  must 
be  some  water-passage  through  this  continent  to  Asia,  was  a 
lure  that  was  tenaciously  followed.  Cortereal,  in  .  I5°°>  was 
the  first  to  suggest  that  Hudson  Strait  was  such  a  passage. 
There  are  many  early  maps  which  unite  Asia  and  America  in 
the  north.  Lower  California  was  discovered  by  Cortes  in 
1533.  This  proved  that  the  continents  were  severed  in  that 
latitude  and  longitude.  But  it  was  not  till  1728  that  Behring 
decided  the  complete  severance  between  them  by  passing 
from  the  Pacific  to  the  Arctic. 

But  no  mere  coast-views,  no  pricking  and  probing  of  the 
shores,  no  entering  of  bays  alone,  could  solve  the  problems 
of  the  New  World.  The  interior  must  be  opened  to  knowl- 
edge. Ships  must  be  left,  or  at  best  exchanged  for  shal- 
lops, and  foot-travel,  with  weapon  and  food  and  courage  and 
resources  for  dealing  with  wild  beasts  and  men,  and  all  im- 
aginable and  unimaginable  ventures  must  pursue  the  search. 
The  cumulative  results  of  exploration,  as  gathered  from  ten- 
tative and  abortive  enterprises,  mistakes,  corrections,  and 
verifications  by  enthusiasm  and  heroism,  by  zeal  renewed 
after  disaster  and  thwarted  efforts,  assured  the  facts,  and 
turned  mystery  and  uncertainty  into  positive  knowledge. 
There  is  a  curious  map  in  the  British  Museum  of  the  date  of 
1560,  which  gives  us  Chinamen  and  elephants  in  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley.  We  owe  more  to  the  prowess  of  individual  ex- 
plorers, who  were  their  own  patrons  and  commissaries,  than 
even  to  government  parties.  The  natives,  when  in  friendly 
relations  with  explorers,  were  found  to  have  a  marvellous 
skill  in  delineating  from  their  own  tenacious  memories,  as  the 
gathering  of  their  keen  observations,  the  most  minute  natural 
features  of  vast  regions  of  territory  which  they  had  tramped 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  25 

over,  if  only  once.  With  a  bit  of  charcoal  on  a  sheet  of  bark, 
or  with  tracings  by  a  stick  in  the  sand,  they  would  draw  a 
most  serviceable  outline  of  a  region,  its  plains  and  elevations, 
its  lakes,  water-courses,  and  its  springs.  Indicating  by  the 
sign  of  sleep  the  length  of  a  day's  journey,  they  would  con- 
vey quite  a  proximate  idea  of  distances.  To  climb  a  hill  or 
mountain  would  satisfy  an  observer  that  he  was  not  reaching 
the  tumbling-off  place  of  the  earth  in  his  endless  stretch. 
Each  little  scrap  of  paper  still  extant,  or  truthfully  transcribed, 
which  gives  the  course  and  the  actual  surroundings  of  an  ex- 
plorer on  his  way,  is  highly  prized  by  the  subsequent  chroni- 
cler and  historian  as  an  item  of  worth  in  the  making  up  of 
a  whole.  An  expert  learns  to  discriminate  between  the 
draughts  of  an  honest  witness  like  Champlain  and  those 
wrought  out  of  the  imagination,  like  Hennepin's. 

These  paper-draughts  begin  about  two  hundred  and 
seventy-five  years  ago,  mainly  of  our  northern  lakes  and  their 
tributaries,  extending  southward  and  westward.  A  com- 
parison of  a  chronological  series  of  the  maps  drawn  by  the 
first  explorers  in  succession,  down  to  the  productions  of  our 
scientific  engineers,  would  in  itself  be  a  most  instructive 
study.  They  show  the  processes  by  which  the  wilderness 
was  opened.  Blank  ignorance,  keen  curiosity,  and  dazed  be- 
wilderment as  to  what  it  might  contain,  yielded  slowly  and 
grudgingly  to  patient  persistency,  till  the  whole  mystery  was 
cleared.  The  records  of  progress  and  enlightenment  are  kept 
by  those  paper-witnesses  as  faithfully  as  if  there  had  been  a 
series  of  surveyors'  land-marks  set  up  over  the  continent. 
But  it  is  not  yet  complete.  Actual  surveys  have  not  yet 
tested  and  verified  the  allotment,  except  by  latitude  and  lon- 
gitude, of  some  of  our  inner  depths.  A  vast  region  of  the 
Northwest,  the  abysses  of  the  Black  Hills,  the  spaces  of  the 
Lava  Beds,  and  even  the  neighboring  Adirondacks,  still 
await  the  exact  trigonometrical  process  with  the  base-line, 
the  theodolite,  and  the  chain. 

The  most  interesting  and  graphic  method  by  which  the 
successive  stages  in  the  opening  of  our  national  domain  could 
be  illustrated,  especially  for  the  young  in  their  training  in  his- 


26  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

tory,  would  be  by  a  series  of  colored  maps,  executed  by  taste 
and  skill.     The  first  of  this  series  should  show  the  whole  con- 
tinent,  without    name,    boundary,  or  division    of  any    sort, 
simply    with  its    natural    features,    land    and    water,    plains, 
mountains,  lakes  and  streams,  as  what  it  was  for  the  aborigi- 
nes and  their  uses  ;   the  water-ways  serving  them  precisely 
as  do  our  railroads  the  uses  of  civilized  man.     The  next  map 
should  show  in   colors,  with  vague  outlines,  the   regions  re- 
spectively occupied  or  explored  by  the  different  European 
nationalities.     The  next  should  indicate,  by  strips  from  north 
to   south,  the    original   sea-board  colonies   on    the  Atlantic, 
planted  or  held  by  the   English,  incorporating  the   Swedes 
and  the  Dutch,  with  another  strip  for  the  regions  beyond  the 
Alleghanies  coming  to  us  by  treaty,  to  mark  the  birth  of  our 
own  nation,  or  afterward  attained  by  purchase  from  Spain  and 
France.     Another  map   might  show  the  successive  lines  of 
forts  and  military  posts  as  our  Government  pushed  westward  ; 
another,  the  series  of  actual  frontier  settlements,  with  forest- 
paths  and  wagon-roads,  till  the  maps  that  go  with  our  railroad 
time-tables  would  complete  the  story. 

THE  USE. 

The  continent  having  been  opened,  especially  that  part  of 
it  which  most  concerns  us — our  own  national  domain  upon 
it — by  the  processes  and  stages  just  rehearsed,  we  turn  now 
to  the  uses,  the  purposes,  which  the  magnificent  field  and 
opportunity  have  been  made  to  serve.  Here,  again,  a  broad 
range  of  critical  alternatives,  as  to  what  might  have  been,  and 
what  is,  presents  itself.  We  shall  find  that  the  possible  and 
the  actual  uses  of  our  domain  before  it  was  appropriated  for 
us  decided  the  fundamental  contingency  as  to  its  ownership, 
its  mastery.  The  prize  was  to  be  contested  between  the 
three  leading  nationalities  of  the  Old  World — Spain,  France, 
and  England.  Italians,  Dutchmen,  Scotchmen,  Swedes,  and 
Germans  were  for  the  most  part  later  claimants.  There  was 
an  Irishman  and  an  Englishman  (William  Herries  and 
Arthur  Lake,  Winsor,  II.,  10,  u)  with  Columbus  on  his  first 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  27 

voyage.  A  noteworthy  fact,  under  the  circumstances  of  the 
opening  of  the  New  World,  was  that  the  foreign  invaders, 
alike  of  all  the  nationalities,  under  their  complimentary  title 
of  "  Christians,"  very  quietly  assumed  a  sort  of  unchallenged 
right  of  authority,  ownership,  and  possession  over  whoever 
and  whatever  in  human  shape  might  be  found  here,  and  over 
the  whole  inventory  of  nature.  They  never  asked  permission 
or  said  "  by  your  leave,"  or  even  regarded  themselves  as 
guests,  on  willing  or  unwilling  hospitality.  There  might  be 
more  or  less  of  disputing  as  to  the  respective  rights  among 
the  invaders  ;  but  there  was  no  deference  whatever  to  those  in 
actual  possession.  It  was  an  axiom  which  all  the  invaders 
assumed  as  having  the  sanction  of  the  founder  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  that  the  heathen  must  always  be  dispossessed, 
whoever  might  come  in  for  the  spoils.  It  is  another  curious 
fact  that  these  invading  Christians,  under  the  banners  of  their 
common  faith,  never  formed  a  holy  alliance  for  rooting  out 
the  heathen  as  such,  but  took  them  off  in  detail.  More  than 
this,  the  invaders,  at  each  point  where  they  probed  the  con- 
tinent, finding  the  native  tribes  engaged  in  a  vigorous  inter- 
necine warfare,  used  them  as  allies  in  their  own  onslaughts  on 
the  savages,  while  rival  European  nationalities  simply  trans- 
ferred their  own  hostilities  to  these  warring  tribes. 

What  there  was  of  international  law,  at  the  period  of  the 
opening  of  the  continent,  assumed  that  newly  discovered 
regions  of  the  earth  were  to  belong  to  the  crown,  and  to  be 
dominated  by  the  European  monarch  whose  subjects  first 
sighted  the  territory.  The  Pope  of  Rome,  as  the  sovereign 
of  all  these  sovereigns,  without  waiting  for  the  eggs,  few  or 
many,  to  be  hatched,  assigned  the  whole  prospective  brood 
to  Spain.  But  the  disposal  was  not  regarded  as  satisfactory, 
even  if  authoritative,  by  those  who  had  an  interest  in  it. 
Rights  of  discovery  soon  yielded  to  rights  secured  by  might. 
It  was  by  no  means  from  the  first  assured  what  the  issue 
would  be.  It  was  decided,  as  we  shall  see,  by  the  contin- 
gency of  use  which  the  grand  prize  should  be  made  to  serve. 
The  great  question  which  hung  in  suspense  was  as  to  the 
final  and  assured  possession,  mastery,  and  peopling  of  this 


28  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

domain  by  one  or  another  nationality  of  the  Old  World.  It 
might  seem  as  if  the  way  in  which  that  question  has  found  its 
solution  was  decided  from  the  first,  as  the  continent  was  so 
soon  the  scene  of  a  deadly  rivalry  and  struggle  between  the 
subjects  of  all  foreign  powers.  The  solution  is,  after  the  wink- 
ing out  of  sight  of  all  the  rights  of  those  who  were  actually  in 
possession  here,  the  native  Indians — that  all  so-called  Christian 
peoples  should  be  admitted  to  the  full,  free  rights  of  occu- 
pancy and  possession,  as  representatives  of  those  concerned 
in  the  earliest  struggles  here.  But  this  solution  was  by  no 
means  anticipated,  that  our  domain  should  afford  an  asylum, 
harborage,  and  homesteads  for  such  a  miscellaneous  occu- 

O       ' 

pancy. 

The  first  actual  collision  between  rivals  for  possession 
was  that  between  the  French  and  Spaniards,  in  1565,  in 
Florida.  The  next  was  between  the  French  and  the  English 
in  the  waters  of  Mount  Desert,  Maine,  in  1607.  Here  we  have 
the  representatives  of  three  potent  nationalities  brought  before 
us,  raising  the  pre'ude  to  the  long  and  bitter  strife,  the  end 
of  which  was  to  decide  the  disposal  of  the  prize.  Spain  might 
offer  its  prior  claims  for  discovery,  and  also  for  some  tentative, 
though  mostly  abortive,  attempts  at  occupancy  by  actual  colo- 
nization. It  is  probable  that  Spaniards  had  rested  at  the  site 
of  Jamestown,  Virginia,  in  1526.  Far  better  grounded  in 
actual  rights  of  possession  attained  by  heroic  enterprise,  ar- 
duous toil,  daring  exploration,  costly  outlay,  and  the  most 
ardent  missionary  zeal,  as  well  as  by  conquest  of  some  savage 
tribes,  and  friendly  affiliation  with  other  tribes,  were  the  claims 
of  France.  No  one,  I  think,  of  a  considerate  and  generous 
mind  can  follow  the  career  of  Frenchmen,  lay  and  priestly, 
on  this  continent  for  two  centuries — in  its  persevering  prowess, 
its  continuous  enterprise,  and  its  splendid  achievements  in 
first  opening  the  region  of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  tracing  from 
its  sources  to  its  mouth  the  mighty  stream  which  divides  our 
continent — no  one  can  read  thoughtfully  the  story  of  New 
France,  without  wondering  at  least  over  the  decision  of  des- 
tiny which  has  assigned  to  her  here  only  a  little  group  offish- 
ing  islands  in  the  Gulf  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent.  29 

But,  after  all,  it  was  the  best  and, wisest  USE  of  the  new  do- 
main— that  is,  the  securing  of  it  by  actual  improvement— that 
was  to  decide  its  possession  and  mastership.  The  fatal  flaw 
which  very  many,  not  unjust  judges,  have  insisted,  impaired 
the  absolute  rights  of  possession  by  the  aborigines  found  on 
this  soil,  was  that  they  were  not  owners  of  it,  because  they 
merely  roamed  over  it  and  skimmed  its  surface,  like  the  birds 
of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the  woods.  They  did  not  add  to 
its  value  by  improvement  or  enrichment.  So  it  was  not  right 
that  this  wasteful  sway  of  barbarism  and  savagery  should 
appropriate  one-half  of  the  globe.  The  Spaniards  and  the 
French  made  little  advance,  as  regards  the  rightful  use  of  this 
splendid  domain,  upon  the  ways  of  the  savages.  They  also 
were  mainly  engaged  upon  spoiling  and  skimming  the  conti- 
nent. Gold  and  pearls  were  the  ends  of  the  Spaniards. 
Peltry  and  furs  were  those  of  the  French.  Meanwhile,  be- 
tween these  roamers  and  skimmers  on  the  southern  and  the 
northern  bounds  of  the  continent,  companies  of  a  sturdy 
English  race  planted  themselves  and  their  claims,  by  strong 
roots,  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  They  took  possession  in  a  way 
to  hold  it.  They  dug  wells,  built  fences  around  tilled  fields, 
and  reared  homes.  They  made  sure  of  a  base-line  for  sup- 
plies by  land  and  water.  The  safe  place  on  which  to  stay 
was  the  fruitful  place  from  which  they  might  swarm.  Colo- 
nization settled  the  use,  and  that  decided  the  possession  of 
this  continent.  And  that  was  the  method  of  extension  and 
advancement.  From  such  a  base-line,  the  series  of  inner 
mountain  ridges  and  of  inviting  valleys  might  be  successively 
reached  and  occupied  ;  but  only  for  the  same  purposes  of  per- 
man'ency  and  improvement.  And  such  have  ever  since  been 
and  are  now  the  uses  to  which  we  have  put  our  domain.  The 
raw  material  of  land,  like  those  of  iron,  cotton,  and  wool,  has 
been. manufactured..  Labor  and  enterprise  have  been  its  fer- 
tilizers. Before  the  age  of  recorded  title-deeds,  there  were 
three  symbols  of  the  rights  of  possession,  national  or  individ- 
ual—the Well,  the  Altar,  and  the  Tomb.  It  was  by  these  that 
the  Israelites  returning  from  Egypt  claimed  a  heritage  in 
Canaan— the  Well  of  Jacob,  the  Altar  of  Bethel,  and  the 


3O  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

Tomb- of  Machpelah.  All  these  implied  homes,  and  homes 
are  the  tenure  of  our  domain.  Nor  can  we  complain  that  the 
spoils  of  mines  have  engaged  the  most  laborious  and  attrac- 
tive enterprise  of  so  many  of  our  pioneers.  For  behind  them 
must  be  the  uses  of  all  ores,  and  the  producers  of  food  to  feed 
the  miners.  And  the  railroad  bands  which  cross  and  bind  the 
continent  will  secure  possession  and  peace  within  it,  however 
weak  may  be  its  sea-coast  defences. 

Under  this  heading,  of  the  Use  of  the  great  domain,  a  very 
serious  matter  presents  itself,  again  coming  in  the  form  of  an 
alternative  of  conditions.  The  first  use  to  which  this  conti- 
nent was  subjected— a  use  not  yet  wholly  disused — was  that 
of  a  thoughtless,  reckless,  wasteful  draining  and  spoiling  of 
it.  The  alternative  of  improvement  and  enrichment  was  one 
which  was  only  slowly  and  gradually  recognized.  The  notion 
assumed  by  all  the  early  comers  to  this  continent,  and,  in- 
deed, perpetuated  to  our  time,  was  that  whatever  might  be 
found  here,  of  resources  and  products,  was  practically  inex- 
haustible. The  scale  of  natural  outgrowths  and  hidden 
wealth  was  here  so  vast,  mountains  with  their  treasures  were 
so  grand,  valleys  were  so  exuberant  in  fertility,  lakes  and 
rivers  were  of  such  volume,  forests  so  deep  and  sublime,  and 
the  wild  beasts  for  skins  and  furs  and  food  were  so  abound- 
ing and  so  rapidly  multiplied  under  a  prolific  nature,  that  no 
draughts  upon  them  for  use  or  havoc  could  even  sensibly  re- 
duce them.  The  recklessness  of  the  generations  preceding 
our  own,  in  dealing  at  least  with  the  surface  products  of  this 
territory,  so  far  as  it  was  not  the  sport  of  utter  thoughtless- 
ness, proceeded  upon  this  assumption,  that  prudence,  fore- 
thought, economy,  a  regard  for  posterity  had  no  occasion 
here.  Already  the  veritable  records  of  our  early  pioneers  as 
to  the  enormous  massings  of  bisons  and  other  gregarious 
beasts,  which  they  had  beheld,  are  getting  to  sound  like 
fables.  For  two  hundred  years  the  regions  penetrated  by  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company  were  spoiled  by  a  promiscuous  de- 
struction of  the  fur-bearing  animals  ;  and  it  was  not  till  the 
Indian  servants  of  the  company  gave  warning,  that  a  pause 
was  annually  allowed  for  the  breeding  season.  The  camp 


Our  Domain  on  this  Continent,  31 

fires  of  hunters  and  strollers  have  been  nightly  fed  'by  the 
consumption  of  a  grove  of  timber,  as  if  under  the  purpose  of 
warming  "  all-out-doors  ;  "  and  an  unextinguished  ember,  left 
as  the  adventurers  passed  on,  has  caused  many  a  forest  con- 
flagration, or  swept  an  unbounded  prairie,  and  left  once  well- 
watered  territories  to  the  desolation  of  deserts.  It  is  true 
that  we  have  not  as  yet  had  occasion  here  to  institute  those 
anxious  discussions  which  annually  engage  the  savans  of 
the  British  Scientific  Association  as  to  the  computable  wealth 
still  remaining  accessible  in  mines  of  coal  and  the  metals. 
But  none  the  less  our  domain  is  measurable,  and  proximately 
calculable  and  ponderable  in  its  resources.  We  have  already 
reached  the  stage  of  experience  in  the  Old  World  at  which 
huge  disasters  attend  upon  the  embowelling  of  the  earth  by 
mining.  Better  than  this,  we  have  the  experience  and  the 
forebodings  which  have  called  for  the  interposition  of  the  Gov- 
ernment for  the  protection  and  the  recuperation  of  forests. 
We  have  reservations  for  Indians,  but  none  for  the  buffalo  or 
the  beaver.  Nothing  in  or  on  this  earth  is  really  inexhausti- 
ble. The  primitive  mechanical  forces  used  by  men  were 
such  as  were  not  consumed,  and  in  no  whit  diminished  in 
putting  them  to  service.  The  water  and  the  air  were  unim- 
paired in  volume  or  in  vigor  after  they  had  turned  the  wheels 
of  the  mill.  But  the  ocean  steamer,  which  consumes  daily 
three  hundred  tons  of  coal,  makes  a  cavity  somewhere,  which 
will  never  be  filled. 


THE  FUTURE. 

And  now  we  face  the  question — for  us  to  ask,  for  others 
to  await  the  answer — as  to  the  Future  of  our  national  do- 
main, the  Fifth  Act  of  Bishop  Berkeley's  world-drama  to  be 
enacted  here : 

"  Westward,  the  Star  of  Empire  takes  its  way  : 

The  first  four  acts  already  past, 
The  Fifth  shall  close  the  Drama  with  the  day. 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last !  " 


32  The  Opening,  the   Use,  and  the  Future  of 

We  have  cast  back  a  retrospect  through  nearly  four 
hundred  years.  Dare  we  cast  the  horoscope  of  four  hundred 
years  in  prospect  ? 

Happily  I  may  take  counsel  here  from  the  example  of  a 
shrewd,  common-sense,  sagacious  New  England  minister  of 
the  old  rural  times.  In  opening  a  very  grave  subject  to  his 
attentive  flock,  he  told  them  he  should  arrange  his  remarks 
on  it  under  three  heads.  The  first  head  would  concern 
what  he  and  they  alike  knew  about  it.  The  second  head 
would  cover  what  he  knew  about  it,  and  they  did  not  know. 
The  third  head  would  relate  to  what  neither  of  them  knew 
about  it.  That  third  head  covers  a  vast  amount  of  preaching. 
The  future  for  our  country !  Here,  again,  our  subject  comes 
to  us  under  the  grave  conditions  of  alternatives.  The  open- 
ing and  the  use  of  this  continent  alike  presented  those  alter- 
natives as  to  what  would  be  revealed  here,  its  account  and 
its  mastership.  The  reality  in  both  cases  proved  to  be  pro- 
pitious for  us.  Let  us  take  that  as  the  omen  of  destiny. 
Where  all  is  secret,  there  is  no  warrant  for  prophecy  but 
through  our  wishes  and  hopes.  But  there  are  conceivable 
and,  to  an  extent,  reasonable  alternatives.  There  are  those 
who  fashion  dismal  and  hopeless  forebodings  for  our  country, 
and  who  point  to  the  agencies  and  elements  which  are  to 
work  dismay  and  catastrophe.  On  the  walls  of  the  precious 
art-galleries  of  this  Society  hangs  the  series  of  most  sug- 
gestive paintings,  five  in  number,  by  Thomas  Cole,  called 
"The  Course  of  Empire."  They  open  with  a  fair  scene 
of  pure  pastoral  life  on  the  virgin  earth,  and  pass  on 
through  the  stages  of  culture,,  wealth,  development,  struggle, 
and  crowning  prosperity,  on  still  to  scenes  of  art,  splendor, 
and  corrupting  luxury,  with  temples  and  palaces,  statues  and 
fountains,  to  the  catastrophe  of  ruin.  These  dark  prophets  bid 
us  study  and  mark  the  lesson  from  those  canvasses  and  pig- 
ments. There,  they  tell  us,  is  the  veritable  history  of  the  rise 
and  the  decay  of  the  four  great  empires  of  the  world  ;  and 
they  ask  if  the  catastrophe  is  not  to  be  repeated  here.  We 
have  reached  the  stage  of  enervating,  corrupting  luxury, 
amid  palaces  and  statues  and  fountains.  The  water  on  which 


Onr  Domain  on  this   Continent.  33 

we  live  comes  from  polluted  streams.  Our  public  and  private 
morals  are  degraded,  and  anarchy  is  in  the  air.  The  most 
splendid  temples,  altars,  and  statues  of  Greece  and  Rome  were 
raised  when  all  faith  in  the  beings  they  represented  had  died 
out  of  men's  minds  and  hearts.  What  shall  we  say  to  avert 
the  omen,  and  to  set  forth  the  bright  alternative  ?  Many 
there  are  among  us — they  are  the  purest,  the  best,  the  most 
generous,  the  noblest  in  sacrifice,  in  labor  and  holy  effort' 
in  all  our  land — who  with  a  serene  confidence  will  answer 
thus  :  "  We  have  a  divine  religion,  as  the  great  conserv- 
ative, benedictive  force,  which  all  the  preceding  great  em- 
pires had  not.  That  is  our  sovereign  security."  If  that  were 
the  conviction  and  confidence  of  all,  or  even  of  a  large  ma- 
jority of  our  people,  and  if  that  conviction  and  confidence 
were  strengthening  by  trial  and  experience,  it  were  indeed 
well.  But  there  are  those  who  doubt  and  deny  that  belief,  and 
among  such  are  those  of  whom  we  stand  in  dread.  Others 
there  are  of  such  doubters  and  deniers,  of  whose  purity,  sin- 
cerity, and  nobleness  there  is  no  question,  who  teach  us  that  we 
must  look  to  human  and  secular  agencies,  to  attested  knowl- 
edge, to  certified  and  illuminating  social  science  for  the  con- 
servative and  benedictive  forces  of  society.  Be  it  so,  then,  that 
there  are  these  two  classes  of  hopeful  prophets  of  our  future  ; 
if,  however,  they  differ  as  to  means,  they  will  unite  their  ef- 
forts and  their  energies  for  the  same  results.  Certain  it  is,  that 
no  empire  or  government  on  this  earth  ever  trusted  as  we  do 
so  much  to  human  ability  and  resources.  It  is  the  only  gov- 
ernment in  this  world  now  that  was  not  founded  and  is  not 
maintained  by  force,  but  on  the  free  will  of  free  men.  And 
that  is  why  all  Europe  and  Asia  look  to  us  with  admiration 
and  awe  and  a  jealous  watchfulness.  The  darkest  shadow  that 
now  threatens  us  is  that  we  are  beginning  to  look  to  force  to 
crush,  by  the  vengeful  energies  of  law,  the  cursed  broodings 
of  anarchy.  The  last  place  on  earth  where  anarchy,  the 
outgrowth  of  despotism,  might  be  expected  to  show  itself, 
is  in  a  democracy  ;  that  where  all  are  free  as  the  very  air  in 
the  making  of  laws,  there  should  be  a  defiance  of  all  law; 
that  where  all  may  be  engaged  in  rearing  the  grandest  social 

3 


34  Our  Domain  on  this   Continent. 

fabric,  we  should  have  to  deal  with  the  desperate  frenzy  that 
would  undermine  it.  Our  confidence,  however,  is  in  this,  that 
anarchy  is  not  an  indigenous  product  of  our  Government,  but 
an  imported,  a  foreign  foe,  not  to  be  recognized  for  citizen- 
ship among  us.  We  may  look  back  to  the  Roman  Horace 
for  the  first  classical  statement  of  the  truth  that  men  would  be 
happy  if  they  but  realized  how  many  means  they  have  for  hap- 
piness, and  would  but  manfully  use  them.  It  is,  indeed,  a  try- 
ing and  a  hazardous  experiment  which  is  at  issue  here.  Our 
country  was  safe  and  hopeful  when  its  citizens  were  alike  the 
product  and  the  makers  of  its  own  institutions.  But  we  have 
opened  it  as  a  harbor  to  all  people.  Luckless,  unhappy,  ill- 
trained  in  the  lands  from  which  they  came,  they  have  been 
most  eager  to  crowd  here  to  enjoy  a  heritage  which  others 
have  wrought  for  them.  The  one  condition  for  peace  and  for 
happiness  for  them,  and  for  ourselves,  is  that  they  respect  and 
honor  and  uphold  the  institutions  whose  privileges  and  bless 
ings  they  have  sought. 


/7 


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